At the scene

Some officials are saying that if you close borders, then you give more power to the traffickers. Others point out that there are 26 million out of work in the EU and that Europe is reluctant to accommodate more migrants.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that there needed to be "more channels for safe and orderly migration". It might help but it remains likely that thousands will still try and migrate to Europe.

None of this is easy but officials are saying that the migrants have become a "European tragedy".

The 20m (66ft) vessel began taking on water when its motor stopped working as it neared Lampedusa on Thursday morning, survivors said.

Some of those on board then reportedly set fire to a piece of material to try to attract the attention of passing ships, only to have the fire spread to the rest of the boat.

The boat - which set sail from the Libyan port of Misrata - is thought to have capsized when everyone moved to one side.

Video footage later showed the vessel sitting upright on the seabed some 45m (150ft) below the surface.

The skipper of the boat, a 35-year-old Tunisian, was arrested. It has emerged that he was deported from Italy in April.

'Shame'

Of the bodies recovered so far 58 were men, 49 were women and two were children of one and six years old. Italian officials say there could be more women in the sunken boat than men - among the 155 survivors only four were women.

Divers are hoping to resume the search in the coming hours, officials say.

"Though the bad sea conditions persist, our guys are ready to go down if a window opens up that makes it safe for them," coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini said.

The operation had initially focused on an area off Lampedusa called Rabbit Island, but the search was then widened beyond the initial radius of four nautical miles in an effort to recover bodies that had been swept away by tides.

The divers have been describing seeing horrific scenes inside the wreckage.

Key migrant routes to southern Europe

Illegal migration numbers

Since 1988, at least 19,142 people died trying to reach Europe's borders - 2,352 in 2011 alone